Posted on 12/13/2004 1:14:49 AM PST by kattracks
POST WORLD EXCLUSIVEWASHINGTON — Billionaire Marc Rich has emerged as a central figure in the U.N. oil-for-food scandal and is under investigation for brokering deals in which scores of international politicians and businessmen cashed in on sweetheart oil deals with Saddam Hussein, The Post has learned.
Rich, the fugitive Swiss-based commodities trader who received a controversial pardon from President Bill Clinton in January 2001, is a primary target of criminal probes under way in the U.S. attorney's office in New York and by Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau, sources said.
"We think he was a major player in this — a central figure," a senior law-enforcement official told The Post.
Investigators are looking into a series of deals that took place in the months after his pardon from Clinton.
[snip]
Investigators now believe Rich and Pollner brokered many of the deals by finding buyers for the oil allocated to people who were bribed by Saddam.
[snip]
So intense is the interest of prosecutors in the Rich connection that Pollner was recently "grabbed" and questioned by investigators from Morgenthau's office as he was on his way to Kennedy Airport for an overseas trip, a law-enforcement official told The Post.
[snip]
Investigators still do not know how recipients of the vouchers led to Rich, but say his relationship with Saddam goes back more than a decade.
A report by the House Government Reform Committee on Rich's clemency deal established that it was well known to the CIA and other U.S. law-enforcement agencies at the time of the pardon that Rich had been dealing with Saddam since the early 1990s — after the Persian Gulf War when Iraq was the subject of an international embargo.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
Well, according to UN docs mentioned in this article, Rich was working on an OFF and an OFA (Oil for Arms) program since 1992:
An internal U.N. document dated June 1992, released to The Post by the House International Relations Committee, also revealed that U.N. officials were concerned about Rich's involvement in an earlier attempt to launch the oil-for-food program.
The U.N. document said Rich was involved in a possible "triangular arms-for-oil deal involving Chile, Iraq and South Africa," as well as illegally exporting Iraqi oil through Syria, and expressed concern that his inclusion on a U.N. list of approved oil traders would be "inappropriate" and would open the United Nations up to criticism that "criteria and standards used to select suitable companies are too lax."
It was likely "inappropriate" only in the sense that it could be traced directly to Rich. It took a few years, but those tracks were eventually covered, in typical UN-style.
That judge did not find there was no merit to the story, just that the Telegraph had reported it and it tarnished poor George's name. Yes, Galloway's name is still on "the list".
Note made to self.
Phildragoo, your expert assistance is needed for this thread...
I did hear MSNBC include the Rich angle and Clinton pardon in a very brief "news roundup" summary this morning. Extremely brief and they "moved on". No in-depth analysis of the implications. Still, it was mentioned, even if just in passing.
What happens when you cross "the biggest scandal in history" with a Clinton crony?
ABC has mentioned it online here:
http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=295926&page=1
I do believe cloud8 HAS found the connection!!
Add that to what BARLF remembered about "that bag of money a carrier for Rich tried to get thru customs"...
Even El ReNo could have put the facts together...if she wasn't so "shaky" on her requirements to the PEOPLE and Constitution!
Bump for later reading.
interesting.....takes time for the truth the whole truth too surface....
The WSJ reporter to whom you refer is Claudia Rosett. And, yes, she has done a dynamite job of covering the OFF scam. I am sorry I missed her on C-SPAN.
I figure by the end of this week the slime attacks will start on Mr. Morgenthau.
Someone please tell me why I ought to be surprised by this.
So now we know just who has been funding the 'Toon Legacy Library - Marc Rich, the UN, and yes, Saddumb Hussein.
Thanks, Clinton.
There are many other important bits of information for everyone to look at in this article. A few of them are:
"Investigators say they have received information that Rich and Ben Pollner, a New York-based oil trader who heads Taurus Oil, set up a series of companies in Liechtenstein and other countries that they used to put together deals between Saddam and his international supporters in the controversial oil-voucher scheme — which the dictator designed to win international support against U.S. sanctions at the United Nations.
"Under the scam, hundreds of international political and financial figures from France, Russia and other countries were awarded middleman vouchers allowing them to purchase set quantities of Iraqi oil at discount rates.
"These so-called "non-end users" could then resell the oil on the open market and make profits of up to 50 cents a barrel. Benon Sevan, who headed the U.N. oil-for-food program, is among those listed in Iraqi Oil Ministry documents as having been a recipient of the vouchers.
"Since most of the recipients did not have refineries or cargo ships, they needed to sell the oil to someone else who could ship the oil out of Iraq in order to cash in."
and:
"In an angry confrontation that followed, Pollner told the New York investigators that they had no jurisdiction over oil deals that took place outside the United States and refused to cooperate, an official familiar with the interrogation said.
"Pollner and Rich could not be reached for comment.
"The Rich connection is the latest wrinkle in a rapidly mushrooming scandal that has thrown the United Nations into its gravest crisis and has led to numerous calls for U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to step down.
"Rich, who fled the country to Switzerland in 1983 to escape an indictment for racketeering and tax evasion as well as trading oil with Ayatollah Khomeini's Iran, has not set foot inside the United States since his pardon.
"In January 2001, in the final hours his presidency, Clinton bypassed law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to wipe the books clean for Rich after being subjected to intense lobbying from former Israel Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Rich's jet-setting ex-wife, Denise, who donated more than $1 million to Democratic campaigns — including Sen. Hillary Rodham's first Senate race — along with an additional $450,000 to Clinton's library fund."
and:
"An internal U.N. document dated June 1992, released to The Post by the House International Relations Committee, also revealed that U.N. officials were concerned about Rich's involvement in an earlier attempt to launch the oil-for-food program.
"The U.N. document said Rich was involved in a possible "triangular arms-for-oil deal involving Chile, Iraq and South Africa," as well as illegally exporting Iraqi oil through Syria, and expressed concern that his inclusion on a U.N. list of approved oil traders would be "inappropriate" and would open the United Nations up to criticism that "criteria and standards used to select suitable companies are too lax."
"Law-enforcement officials said the primary interest of current grand-jury probes taking place in New York focus on Rich's oil deals with Saddam that took place after his pardon, which could make him fair game for a new round of indictments.
"Some of the deals took place in February 2001 — one month after he received his pardon. "
These last are the most important. I hope Justice is able to get enough on this guy so we can have him fry.
Wouldn't it be just great if some of the dimbulbs in the E.U. could get it through their head that this guy ought to be charged in the International Criminal Court?
Charging him in the US is not going to mean anything since he has not stepped foot in the US since 2001. The ICC could come through and mean something if they got him!
They wrap up the story with:
"Of particular interest to investigators is a series of deals outlined in recently released Iraqi Oil Ministry documents that show allocations of more than 72 million barrels of oil to a French oil trader Patrick Maugein.
"Maugein, an oil trader, is a longtime business associate of Rich and oil-trading firm Trafigura and has also been identified as a close friend of French President Jacques Chirac. A report in October by CIA weapons inspector Charles Duelfer said members of Saddam's regime "considered Maugein a conduit to Chirac."
"Investigators are also looking at Rich's fingerprints on several oil deals involving Russian political figures and businessmen. Rich has longstanding ties in Russia and has done several questionable commodities deals with Russian mafia figures and oligarchs, who seized control of vast Russian financial and natural resources after the collapse of the Soviet Union, sources said.
"Several major American oil companies, including Chevron Texaco and Exxon Mobil, have also received grand-jury subpoenas."
I hope all of those who knowingly circumvented the Iraq sanctions fry.
Financial reasons of course...
According to the Jerusalem Post former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak acting as a character reference that Marc Rich informed Clinton that Rich was involved in numerous philanthropic and humanitarian projects in Israel contributing over $100 million to various Israeli charitable organizations.
Although...some say that Rich was also a "Mossad asset".
Without a doubt.
"I do believe cloud8 HAS found the connection!!"
Thanks, but I'm afraid dead men don't talk, and Rich was bought off by the pardon...unless...unless Morganthau and the Feds have something on him and he is willing to sing. In the meantime we all need to uncover what we can.
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